Mastering Emotions

“And the evening and the morning were the third day“ (Genesis 1:13).

If you notice God begins in the evening to the morning and calls it “day.” Whether it is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth day, the Creator God named a “day” beginning in the evening and concluding with the morning. Twenty-four hours in the day that God does His marvelous work.

Would it not be a good and holy thing for us to concentrate on God in the evening hours? So many times we think we must begin in the morning to set the day before us. But God sets the day beginning in the evening hours.

In the evening, many times, we throw off restraints and we fall into the arms of the flesh. Child care, dinner time, tv, pjs, or special events–dinner with friends, movie, ballgame, etc. and we can neglect to rest in God’s evening day to recreate us for the whole day.

Give God your evening. Meditate upon the One who began creation’s story with the evening. It just might be He wants to create His image in you to reflect His glorious creation through you. Life begins in the evening and runs through the morning and afternoon and God calls it the “third day.” May every day be His glorious image in us.

Hundreds of students across the Piedmont Triad walked out of class during Wednesday’s nationwide walkout, but Connor Groce had his own way of taking a stand by staying in his seat.  Connor said, “I just spent the moment in prayer and in reflection,” the West Forsyth senior explains.  “Obviously, for the families of the victims in Florida and the horrific tragedy down there but for our nation as a whole because I think we live in a very fragile time.”

At its core, the current debate taking place about gun control is about more than guns.  What’s being protested is a symptom of a much larger problem.  We will not be able to legislate away evil.  No laws written on any book will change the human heart.

Our day is a lost culture that the students have inherited from us.  It’s a lost culture that mocks or ignores God and His “Timeless Truths“.  We live in a generation that is top-heavy for carnal pleasures and temporary thrills.  We have lost control of ourselves.

There is a growing epidemic of gun violence.  In addition to Florida, there have been school shootings in the states of Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  “How many schools, how many children have to get shot?” Andrew Pollack asked and pleaded with the President of the United States.  Mr. Pollack’s daughter, Meadow, was murdered in Parkland, Florida.  He said, “It stops here, with this administration and me, because I’m not going to sleep until its fixed.”  Any parent can understand this man’s broken heart if it were one of us before President Trump.

Many of the people who want to control and eliminate the symptoms are the very ones, sadly, who want to ban the very things that will lead to healing and revival.  Unless this country and her churches turn back to God, those with a fervent and sincere faith are going to be continually mocked and marginalized rather than respected and uplifted, meaning there is absolutely no help or hope from outside of ourselves, for God is out and Satan is in.

John Adams, second President, remarked that “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  History is very clear:  godlessness and immorality leads to any outbreak of evil.  If Conor Groce can take 17 minutes to pray in a classroom, can not God’s people take more and call upon God’s grace and mercy to start in us.

“And I looked and, lo, a Lamb stood on Mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1).

In the previous verse the Bible speaks of a beast and his number is 666 — man pretending to be God.  Unless the people of that day (and I believe it to be soon) repent, they will take the seal of the beast which will enable them to settle down in the world to buy and to sale.  Therefore they will accept the seal of the beast which will be their doom.

Though the man of sin will stand out in that future day he will not stand too long.  John sees the Lord Jesus Christ standing at the Temple Mount in the city of Jerusalem at a time in the future.  And alongside of the Lord Jesus and His return will stand those who have the mark of the Lord in their foreheads.  The Lord is saying, “These are Mine. Hands off!” These are My 144,000.”  Throughout these years of tribulation, they will be witnessing and testifying boldly about the Lord Jesus in the integrity of the Lord.

You and I are not to take up the lifestyle of today.  These that are sealed are saved, sealed, and spotless men and women, those to whom lived for Christ in their generation.  These are those who will have an impact on their times.  You and I are to live with impact.  During these days of lies, deception, immorality, and violence we are to be truth-filled disciples; during our short days on earth we are to live the same.  If our mouths are filled with lies, if our lives are lacking in morality and integrity, then no one will listen to what we have to say about the gospel or the Lord Jesus.

“Father, thank you for the seriousness of this chapter.  You have mapped out a plan that will ultimately bring glory to Your name, and we realize we must fit in Your plan.  May we bear the message and the fruits of repentance and godliness.  We commit our lives to You, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.“

“And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all. And he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made” (I Kings 15:26).

Israel was once a powerhouse of divine wealth. But then the nation plunged into evil by allowing idolatry and apostasy to stagnate their lives. They slid in and swam into a cesspool of evil and sinfulness with glee.

There was a king by the name of Shishak. He was king of Egypt. On the heels of apostasy Jerusalem was attacked. This devilish King came and took the treasures of the house of the Lord away.

All over our land today are hearts and homes and churches who were once rich in prayer, the Word of God, good works, joy, but now they are ransacked and barren because Shishak has stolen the treasures of the Lord from the people of God.

It is time to return to the Lord with acknowledgement of sin. We are dusting ourselves off instead of confessing our sin. How can we teach transgressors God’s ways until we profess our great lack? May God help us to see our exposed sin that sinners see and we do not. There is hope when our hope is in God. May God lay His axe to the root of our lives by His Word and by His Spirit.

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength” (Isaiah 30:15).
“In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” Eight words. Two qualities. One result. This is how to decode life. When we are rattled we can become loud. When we become loud and rattled, we’re weak. No wonder the world is in the state of confusion as it is today. A heavy truck rattles, an unlatched gate beats against the gate post, but a silent river runs deep, and a quiet and confident person stands out like a giant tree among the pines.

What is the tale behind the text? What did the prophet’s pen mean as he wrote? Isaiah saw an envoy of men headed down to Egypt to broker help. Israel was afraid of the impending invasion of different countries. Isaiah told the people in his sermon that God owned them and cared for them. He said to them to return back to their Creator, Redeemer and He would watch for them. Isaiah demonstrated, “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.”

The last phrase of the sentence is stunning–“but you would have none of it.” The people of Israel would not listen to the “seer”. They rejected God’s vision for safety and security, for they were hell-bent on their own agenda.

God has spoken these words to our nation and to our souls. He promises quietness and rest if we would repent and return. To rest in Him is our hope, to trust in Him is our strength, and to turn back to Him is to find quietness for our souls. Quietness is horizontal; it’s our attitude toward circumstances and difficulty. Confidence is vertical; it’s our trust in God. When the horizontal and the vertical come together, it becomes our inward strength.

“Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking, as newborn babies, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow by it” (I Peter 2:1-2).

With the breakup of the home we are becoming an angry nation.  With the advent of kids who are angry at life and what it has done to them there is an uptick in gun violence.  What used to be settled through normal communicable channels and court systems, we are now discounted and unsettled through the vengeance of young men or women with a gun.

The race issue has surfaced like days before.  Except now the media covers quickly what it took papers days to print.  Many conservative speakers can no longer enter our universities because of radical leftists who have resorted to violence.  Add white supremacists into the mix and we could have a war on our hands.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer lamented the fact that students and professors during the Hitler era resorted to silence so as not to lose their jobs, etc.  Today in our institutions Christian students, and especially professors, have to keep their convictions to themselves in order to graduate or continue teaching.  One cannot even say, “Jesus“, in a classroom without repercussions.

I have no hope that the immigration crisis will be ever resolved.  As both sides demonize each other we will continue to have a toxic atmosphere of name-calling and political posturing.  The good news with all of this is that the churches have the privilege of welcoming whomever God sends to us.

God has called us to honor Him by letting our light shine despite the consequences.  What is at stake are the eternal values that has been handed down to us.  The Lord Jesus has given His Church (notice that I said, “His Church“) all the resources she needs to be faithful in every culture, every generation, and every circumstance.  He will not forsake us now!  By His Grace let the Church be the Church!